Andrew and Julie's Travelling Adventures

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Painful preparations

As you may have seen, we’re planning quite a trip that’ll take us through quite a few countries, which means we’re likely to encounter quite a few nasty diseases.

And that means quite a few jabs.

How many jabs you ask? Well, we’ve been attending our local NHS surgery every week for the last 6 weeks and we’re now on first-name terms with the local nurse – is how many jabs.

Ouch

Now, I’m no fan of injections. Or pain in general really. My Mum will delight in telling you I’m pretty squeamish, though you need just ask her which one of us it was that passed out and fell under the operating table when I was laid out having my finger stitched up. I’m definitely my Mother’s son.

Anyway.. comparing the symptoms of the diseases with the mild and short-lived pain of injections is the easiest way to convince yourself the injections are worth it. Just take a look at of some of these..

The acute illness causes liver inflammation, vomiting, jaundice, and, rarely, death. Chronic hepatitis B may eventually cause cirrhosis and liver cancer – a disease with poor response to all but a few current therapies.

Encephalitis:

Symptoms include headache, fever, confusion, drowsiness, and fatigue. More advanced and serious symptoms include seizures or convulsions, tremors, hallucinations, and memory problems.

That’s it. Definitely getting vaccinated.

Double Ouch

Ahh, but wait a second. Because these diseases are so rare in the United Kingdom, we have to pay for the vaccinations. OK, how much are we talking?

Rabies injection: £60.00

Hepatitis B injection: £44.10

Japanese Encephalitis: £80.00

That’s (*reaches for calculator*).. £184.10 !!

Ahh.. wait but another second, that’s the per injection price. Most of these vaccinations are for a course of 3 injections!!!

Triple Ouch

That makes for a total of £472.30 (the Japanese Encephalitis is two injections)

Before we’ve even packed our bags, we’ve spent more on vaccinations than all our other expenses to date put together. And you know what, after re-reading those symptoms, we don’t begrudge a single penny.

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4 thoughts on “Painful preparations”

Glad to see you got all your jabs – well worth any amount of money in my opinion. Just been reading all the posts – Andrew you forget to mention one of your other reasons for wanting to visit China – come on we all know you are partial to a little manure flavoured tipple!!

Definitely worth the money judging by the scary symptoms we read about for some of the diseases!
We know how much you enjoyed the Chinese firewater so you may find that our elves have delivered a small gift to scent your flat ;-)

Hello.my name nikolay. May be you remember who I am? I’m sales cellfons in little store. You also fixed paints. I’m read this is post. In Russia this injections is not expensive, if you make ingections in Russia you can safe money may be 5000 rubles.

Of course we remember you and Nadia, Nikolay, you made our day in Ulan Ude :D

5,000 Rubles (about £100 GBP)? That’s excellent! Where would we go for injections in Russia and would we need to make an appointment?
In the U.K. we don’t have to travel very far to find a doctor or nurse that can provide them, and while some of these injections are free, for illnesses that aren’t natively common in the U.K. we have to pay. There are also some travel clinics that can provide injections too, and they can be found in most big towns or cities on the main shopping street (such as ‘Superdrug’, or ‘Boots’)